johnmyster

The tripp mags don't have as high of a front wall, making them easier to unload than the wilson or metalform tubes. It's that, in combo with the flat nose and the tendancy to nozedive for the first few rounds that makes them harder to unload. That high front wall helps keep the top round from advancing due to friction during feeding. If your guns run well on tripps without top round advancing and loose round dribble, their mags can make life easier. Some guns dribble with them, some don't.

If rounds have the ability to slide forward in the magazine (under recoil) this can repeat. I like to slide bullets forward in the mag with slide removed to check for interference. I've had slidestops that needed some relief to clear blunt profile bullets loaded long. As has already been said, a detent on the stop helps prevent this if a pill grazes the slidestop nose.

Since now you're talking 223 and PRS that changes the situation. If you're serious, you'll end up with multiple presses. I got a used 550 about 4 years ago and imagined I would do everything under the sun on it. Since then, my time got more valuable with wife, work, home upgrades and family. I mostly reload 9mm or 45 on it, 200 to 300 rounds per session, often on a day off work while I drink my coffee. My loads are pretty settled so depending on primer availability, it'll spend months doing one or the other. In the off season I'll load up small quantities of other calibers (a years worth, maybe 3-500 of 45 LC and 38) on it to get me through the year. Based on that, I wish I would've ditched the idea of it being a jack of all trades and purchased it from the start as a dedicated auto pistol reloading station: a 650 (or 750) with case feeder. Largely this depends on what your time is worth and how involved your 223 reloading is going to be. Is your 223 going after accuracy or just cheap effective blaster ammo? If you're going for accuracy, sizing for multiple chambers, trimming, and dealing with once-fired mil brass (crimped primers) then 223 throws a wrench in the scheme of using a smaller progressive. I ended up doing 223 in two passes on a 550. (You can perhaps get away with single pass reloading if you know you're getting uncrimped brass.) On the first pass, I lube, deprime, swage pocket (swage-it attachment), 80% resize, and resize/trim. Then you clean and store this in a big bucket. On the second pass you'll prime, load, and crimp. Even if you don't trim, you have to deal with the crimp, most likely by depriming and swaging off press in a prep step that might as well be prior to cleaning. On a 1050, you can do your bulk 223 reloading on the press in a single pass, including swaging and trimming. In the end, I didn't find 223 load development and reloading to be very entertaining so all that 550 hardware (including trimmer) has spent years in a storage tote. If you have more time available your ecosystem of loading and unloading matures to a different end. I think you should start off by doing your pistol reloading on a progressive. Eventually, perhaps you start doing 223 by buying prepped 223 brass and also do that on your progressive. You can buy a single stage on the side to use for your 223 load development and PRS work. If you are able to keep range pickup once fired brass out of your 223 brass stream, you can likely rid yourself of the need to deal with the crimp and perhaps even the trimming.

Ditto on tight group. I ran a bunch of scenarios when powder was last available. Coated 45 at barely major for 1911 was motivating me to add something a little more specific than WST to the bench and sell off my 231 stash. I settled on E3, but... Unique seems to be the do-all powder for 45. Seems like you could make yourself happy and use that up. Sport Pistol is on my list to try someday. Seems I found a bunch of happy threads on the internet for it and American Select if I hadn't gone with E3. Case fill was a priority for me. Unique and Sport Pistol both check that box.

Now that it's running, take a look at slidelock engagement next time you're at the range. Make sure you're not getting weak engagement and peening the notch. And no shock buffer right? Personally, my 45 guns (which are stiffer than the trojans I've had) run with 23# MS, rounded FPS, and 15-16# RS at 170 PF on healthy mags. 21# MS buys back some headroom. Throw in a >17# MS and that's where I can start to get intermittent lock back. Follower to slide stop nose engagement can be examined with the slide off of the gun. I've had to tune some followers to get deeper engagement. Just make sure there's no contact with one round left (mainly an issue for the smaller 9mm round).

For perspective, I mostly use VZ standard thickness, for reference. Operator II, Simonich Gunner, the Harrison grooved variant, etc. I had some wood, flat bottom RoCo grips once. They were thicker than thick. It was like holding a baseball bat. I think VZ is doing palmswell grips now too, if you want more than "normal".

You should be able to get sub 3# break with a 23# mainspring and good components. The 17# MS is a cheat if done only to reduce trigger pull, and may not get you where you need to be with other aspects of the gun (ignition, controlling slide velocity of 40 cal, etc). What you seek requires more than simply swapping parts. This isn't an M&P and an apex kit. Number one overlooked item, does the trigger slide smoothly in the frame. If not, you've got some polishing work and perhaps even reshaping the trigger bow ahead of you. (If trigger doesn't move freely, you have to overcome that on the trigger pull and then you need the seer spring set stiff enough to overcome it on the return. Both of these are bad for light/crisp triggers.) After that, does the disconnector move smoothly against the trigger bow? Are the surfaces of the disconnector smooth where it contacts trigger, sear, and sear spring? Is the angled surface on the top of the middle leaf smooth? Are the sides of the sear smooth and the frame walls where the sear rotates within the frame? Does everything have a drop of oil on it? If all this is good and your hammer hooks / sear nose are as they should be, you've got some additional tweaking of the sear spring to do. The middle leaf sets the "first stage" or take up. The left leaf adds to this the additional force needed to break the trigger (beyond what is provided by sear/hammer interface angle and friction.) Proceed carefully. Most smiths have a takeup weight that they shoot for, and then the break after that. (As a shooter I don't mind having a little more takeup weight. Most dan wesson factory triggers seem to be set that way. Light total break but somewhat intentional on the takeup.) Guns with light triggers will be prone to hammer follow via trigger bounce. No dropping the slide on an empty chamber. No Neanderthal slide racking. If you haven't done this before, do vet the gun to verify you don't get hammer follow during normal cycling or with the trigger pinned. This usually means you have other problems. Since you've messed with the hammer and sear, obviously make sure the gun still passes safety check (thumb safety does what it should) and that you don't have hammer follow when you disengage safety after a firm trigger press. If so, it's time to refit the safety. If some hack has been inside the gun before you, understand you may have some corrective work to do.

The only negative you've seen? How hard did you search? Forum consensus on Fusion Firearms? | 1911 Firearm Addicts (1911addicts.com) Fusion Reaction vs. Springfield Range Officer - 9mm | 1911 Firearm Addicts (1911addicts.com) He did sell me a shorter front sight since he built the gun with one too long to be adjusted to POI=POA. Slidelock didn't work because he used a 45 slide stop with a nose too short, so I welded and refit that for him. He couldn't have corrected the ejection issues (using a 45 ejector on a sub caliber gun.) He couldn't have addressed the feeding issues...mostly associated with a non ramped barrel and bad feed geometry in a 9mm gun. (There's a reason other modern 9mm guns use ramped barrels.) He couldn't address the out of spec frame issue (couldn't even insert most common 9mm mags...except of course the ones he sold.)

I had a Fusion Reaction. Stay away. A great deal on a poorly made gun with lots of features, still isn't a good deal. Unless you don't really want her to get into the sport, in which case a finicky gun that won't feed will be perfect. Stay the course and find a Range Officer or Ronin. Even an older STI Spartan. Edit: I should've typed "have" instead of "had" above. I still have the gun, in a parts bin. Not worth trying to fix. My small contribution to the 1911 world to take it out of circulation.

They're the same length as your Tripps when it comes to stock pads vs stock pads. The extra length of the dawson basepad helps if you're running the ICE magwell. Otherwise, the stock pad on ETMs, Tripps, and Metalforms is pretty well flush with the funnel, so you can't be sloppy. With the IPSC funnel, you get more clearance. The "top round push" issue is interesting to me in that some guns (my Trojan) don't have the problem. Take the same ammo and the same mags to another gun, and you get the issue (my Valors), which makes you gradually switch to the metalforms (or ETMs, which also block top round creep.) I say this to say, polishing the stripper rail might help. The dynamics of the issue are interesting. Some guns do, some guns don't.

May or may not be a very nice DVC Limited 40 listed with 5 mags over on 1911 addicts for $2.5k by a dealer/member. in June 2020, STI/Staccatto took my newly acquired 2004 Trojan 9mm back to fix a feeding issue. According to them, the ramp angle on many of their earlier guns/barrels was not optimal (and on this gun, had been for 16 years.) Gunsmith Ricky fit a new barrel and gave it a new extractor. They paid shipping both ways and included a dawson tool less guiderod and a brand new Tripp mag. Guide rod was because the gunsmith got annoyed by the FLGR they originally equipped the gun with. The mag was to entice me to switch to Tripp mags. (Gunsmith opinion was that it would feed better than with WC ETMs.) It was just over a year ago, but seems like they are far from unsupportive of their historical product.

No, the "weight" of spring in your Canik will not translate 1:1 into what is appropriate for our 1911. You'll get opinions from 8# to 13#. It'll depend on the load, the gun, the mainspring as to how low you can go and what you ultimately prefer. My 5" 1911s are happy in the 10 to 12 pound range using 135 gr loads at 1000 fps with a 17# mainspring.

I fit a Silencerco p320 threaded unit for my x-carry. Required only narrowing of hood.

I strangely had exactly the opposite experience. Wilsons (ISMI?) were consistent, but low. Springco were 10% to 20% low. Wolf was most consistent, always within <5% of the label. It's frustrating because once you have a tester, you'll know what weight you want for a happy gun. At that point, you just want a brand that delivers springs that test to spec. If a brand (or your tester) was consistently a certain weight or percentage off, you could account for it. For brands that are inconsistent, you just waste time and money. $12 luggage scale from amazon, some plywood scraps, and misc hardware. I verify the scale on occasion using calibration weights and some water jugs against a fairly reliable (to about 0.5 oz) postal scale. Repeat tests on the same spring are always +/- 0.1 pound. Guiderod is 1/4" because it matches the ID of the spring almost perfectly. Threaded enough to hold a washer and nut on the end. There's another washer in the end of the PVC (held there by the cap) to give the spring something flat/square/even to sit on at both ends. I have marks on the side of the board to quickly measure the relaxed length of the spring...should be ~6.5" new. Slots in the lower stop allow adjustment of compressed length for the jig. Short piece of pipe is cut to exactly 1.625" and is used to set compressed length of the jig. Using the jig I know I'm compressing to the same length every time, which is a step up over the handheld versions where you pull to a measurement mark. I'd make a spacer for the difference between commander and govt compressed lengths if that was something I dealt with. It's not my finest woodworking project, but it took the guesswork out of dealing with my 9mm guns (not feeding if springs get too weak) and 45 guns (fail to lockback if spring to stiff for whatever ammo.) With a tester...at least you know what the spring is. Makes random, unlabeled springs on your bench less or a problem. With an ever changing collection of 1911s this was a game changer.

135 at .357, seated just short of lands has been a good combo. Right below 1000 fps in my 5" guns has been a happy spot. Haven't yet tried the 145 RN I see offered at by several outfits, including my preferred vendor. I can't imagine the 147 TC or RNFP would be reliable in a 1911, but perhaps some have tried successfully.

Two I've had: Dan Wesson Wraith...which is odd because the Valor isn't. A really early STI Trojan...which was odd because I had another that was a serialed a few hundred guns later, that wasn't.

I used 4.3 of WST behind coated 200 gr SWC for 1911s and seems GTG in my 5" 625. Velocity is right at 165 pf. Now running 4.0 E3 for the same. Velocity is up a hair from WST depending on temperature. Different bullet than you, but should give you another data point. Biggest plus is not getting that pungent ammonia smell when shooting. Metering in a dillon drop is good enough for my purposes. I do have a uniquetek baffle in place.

I was referring to this one. Not ICE. IPSC model. https://dawsonprecision.com/magwell-1911-ipsc-classic-division-by-dawson-precision/

Dawson IPSC if you don't want to be as deep as the ICE. Aluminum funnel and MSH.

You said it's a new gun, so I'm going to speculate a little further than the ignition system. I've had titanium firing pin guns and they ran fine, but you might want to make sure the firing pin return spring isn't also super hard. How's the alignment of the firing pin hole to the primer? I had a 9mm striker gun (not a 1911) get light strikes because pin was hitting towards the edge of the primer. Hard to imagine on a large primer, but I have a friend who had the same problem with a 45 Ruger 1911. Ruger put a new upper on the gun to solve the issue. Are you sure the gun is going into battery properly? That the brass is sitting properly against the breechface?

Second for WST in 135 grain 9mm. It's been very useable for me. Good case fill. Probably not as clean as n320. Affordable and (usually) available. 231 and bullseye will do it too. You've got lots of options if you're hurting for powder. AA#2. American Select. Red dot. Clays. Universal. CFE Pistol. Sport Pistol. True Blue.

First photo, tripp cobramag with dawson (black) and tripp stock (stainless) Second photo, Metalform (black) and Wilson ETM (stainless) Third photo, Wilson 47D (black) and Wilson ETM (stainless)

With the IPSC magwell, I get away with regular ETM basepads as well as the similarly profiled Tripp and Metalforms with the plastic basepads. (There's no way about it iwth the ICE magwell.) They stick out a little. I can get a photo if it's of concern. I do have some tripps with the Dawson basepads and it helps. Bit if you have a good seating technique, you're good.

To digress...I think my limitation with e3 may be consistency of metering in the Dillon measure if I want to see SD<15, ES<50. Time will tell. Probably also time to ditch the Dillon beam balance. Edit, further digression and response to perttime's reply... My desire for tight velocity spreads (making power factor) is not connected with any perceived need to improve perceived accuracy for my application.

Trigger guage range is too low. You want to test to a repeatable length of 1.625". $12 scale from amazon. Verify it on occasion using some water jugs. Guiderod is 1/4" because it matches the ID of the spring almost perfectly. Threaded enough to hold a washer and nut on the end. There's another washer in the end of the PVC (held there by the cap) to give the spring something flat/square/even to sit on at both ends. I have marks on the side of the board to quickly measure the relaxed length of the spring...should be 6.5". Slots in the lower stop allow adjustement of compressed length for the jig. Short piece of pipe is cut to exactly 1.625" and is used to set compressed length of the jig. Crude but took the guesswork out of dealing with my 9mm guns (not feeding if springs get too weak) and 45 guns (fail to lockback if spring to stiff for whatever ammo.)